Well that's just amazing. Purtell addressed the diners in the Coral Stand after the Batley game, and was asked how his shoulder operation had gone. Fine was the response. When will you be available was the next question. Worst case, said Adrian, the week before the middle 8's.

which summarises the problem. The real question is what is our strongest team if everybody were 100% match fit. But this is RL, and therefore thats a fantasy team. The lack of information about injuries makes our attempts to work out the best team a guessing game.

Perhaps its one for Gledders to ask post match why over here its secret whereas in the NRL all team injuries are published regularly!

Far more media scrutiny over in Aus, simple as that. Look at football clubs in this country - they can't keep anything under wraps because of media attention, for the simple fact that they can sell papers with the news.
Conversely, the general public don't give two hoots about Mitch Clark's leg injury so nobody bothers to try and find out.

On the subject of our strongest squad, i don't think we have one. I think Smith chooses a particular 17 to try beat that particular opposition that day. We've seen him play Addy at hooker and put OB on bench when playing Leigh so not to get out muscled early on. We've seen him play 5 props against Batley (Lowes didn't do that once last year) If Clark didn't get injured so early on, i think we would have won by a bigger margin.

Lowes played the same 17 virtually every week, running our best players into the ground. How easy must we have been to scout in a lead up to playing us? Batter Sidlow and Clough as Lauaki and Crossley will only play 10 minutes each. Then in the most important game of the year, he panicked playing centres on the wing, centres at hooker, playing our 2 best props for 70 minutes and almost forgetting he could make substitutions.

That's also what he said in Bulletin paper at weekend

don't think the coach is behind it to be honest. The policy pre-dates Rohan's arrival by some distance so, rather than to him in the post match interview the question may be better posed to Steve Ferres, who I'd guess is more likely to be the instigator.

To be fair, I can see good reasons for not giving the information out too readily - not least that [if given totally honestly] it gives valuable team info to the opposition.

Our 19 man squad only has 18 men in it

Welham, Philbin, AoB, Crossley, Ryan, Haggerty, Kavanagh, Clough, Howarth, Blythe, Addy, Charnock, Pitts, Mellor, Sidlow, Clare, Moss, Thomas

Hope he plays Clare at centre rather than Blythe -_-

Moss
Ryan, Clare, Welham, Williams
Thomas, Charnock
Sidlow, OB, Clough
Pitts, Haggerty
Addy
------
Haworth, Philbin, Crossley, Kavanagh

Spoke to Rohan about this yesterday and his official line was why give the opposition information.

Aaaah, on the email it mentions Walker replacing Walshaw but doesnt list Walker in the 19

There are 18 listed in the e mail but in the main body of the piece it says that Johnny Walker replaces Lauaki
I suspect the wings will be Clare and Ryan and the centre will be Blythe

1. Moss
2. Ryan
3. Blythe
4. Welham
5. Clare
6. Thomas
7. Charnock
8. Clough
9. O'brien
10. Sidlow
11. Haggerty
12. Pitts
13. Addy

14. Howarth
15. Kavanagh
16. Crossley
17. Philbin

Tempted to go with 5 props again as it will be physcial and Walker provides a bit of mongrel.

Think its pretty much guaranteed Howarth and Philbin will feature so doesnt really leave space for a fifth prop unless we stick Clough at loose or maybe Kavanagh in 2nd row? Cant see how we can avoid playing Blythe with squad named, only real option would be Mellor in but hes never looked comfortable their IMO.